When one of her cats fell sick, first with diarrhoea, then later with calicivirus, Joan Bingi did not see the bill coming. By the time treatment was done, she had spent Sh18,500. It remains the biggest bill she has paid in more than a decade of keeping cats.
"The one thing that I had not anticipated about becoming a pet owner is their treatment costs," she says. "These include vaccines as well as boosters."